Witnessing to Malays and others

"Eh, Joel, why can't Jesus just be a prophet ye? Kenape dia tak boleh macam orang biase?"

These are wonderful questions to hear from your Malay colleagues. I am more than happy to answer why Jesus is not just a prophet, and why Jesus cannot be merely a prophet to save the world. 

Just these 2 days, my Malay colleagues have been asking me different things about Christianity in contrast with Islam (over lunch and after office work is done). Sometimes I gave satisfactory answers, sometimes I tell myself "You should have responded to that question more wisely!" a few minutes after I gave them a reply.

Besides that question, they have asked things like

"What is the difference between Catholic and Protestant?"

"Who is the biggest guy in Protestant?"

"What does the Bible say about doomsday?"

"Why are there so many versions of the Bible, and that there are so many revisions of one version"

"How can the Trinity be true?"

and the list goes on. 

Admittedly, there are no simple answers to the questions above. Besides that, knowing why they are asking such questions might sometimes be more important than answering the question itself. I had no guide book in answering these questions, and one question came after another, sometimes I am a little disappointed when I give blurry answers, but I am happy for one thing - they kept asking questions about Jesus and the Bible. Its good because by asking more and more questions about Jesus and the Bible, I can tell them more and more about the Full Gospel without saying things like "Do you have a moment for me to tell you from Genesis to Revelations?"

Most of the time, the "witnessing skills" we learn or the "witnessing mode" we turn on involves us telling more and more about ourselves becoming Christians - and trying to convince another person that our "experience with God" is genuine. We have to tell them how we "felt" when we sing songs in church, how the atmosphere just buzzes, the miracle about our aunt getting healed of cancer, and the list goes on. Instead of drawing them to the cross, we draw them more and more to ourselves. We learn the trick: People cannot contradict testimonies. You can argue against theories, but you can't argue testimonies.

But the problem is that we are bearing testimony of ourselves (and our little experiences) rather than bearing testimony of what happened on the cross 2000 years ago. Seekers become more suspicious as they hear the words we say, and their suspicion is well founded. After all,

"What gives me the assurance that what happen to you will also happen to me?"

or

"What makes you sure that what happens to you is the truth? After all, you are not the only one with miracles happening"

We then go further and further to ask them to make a "leap of faith" to trust that our experience of God is good enough evidence for them to make the first step... and hopefully they "experience" whatever we experience enough, so that their faith may be strong. Do we not realize that we have shifted the basis of our faith from the "historical work of salvation by Jesus" into some "weak experience and feelings we develop in church"? And yes, our mindset along such lines have brought us to continually think...

"If only I can bring Joe and Moe to church, then the pastor will do some amazing thing and they will somehow come to believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour!"

Oh, if only we knew how powerful God's Word is on its own. We think as though people do not want to know the truth, as if truth does not matter. We are so busy feeding their immediate needs - promising them feelings(of peace, security, health, wealth, and whatever nots) leaving out the most crucial truth! Do we not know that even if they should come to church and raise up their hands during an altar call - you are increasing their chances of falling away? Or have you not heard the parable of seeds? The seed who fell on shallow ground who received it immediately with joy, but withered away as they had no roots? Should not their faith be rooted in the truth of the Gospel?

I remember during McGarage long time ago (yes, long time ago), we were laughing over the idea how church has served the Gospel with sandwiches. So that halfway while eating their sandwich, the pastor pops up and they can't go anywhere. Surely we do not use sandwiches, but do we try to serve the Gospel with Feelings? Most of the time, we think so pragmatically, that we say:

"it is okay for them to buy the feelings/our second hand experience/whatever first, they will come to know Jesus later"

and we do this in the name of "meeting their immediate needs". Come on, I believe most of us are educated in university already. Even a person not educated in university knows what a "con job" this is like. Let us suppose that this believer does "buy" our talks on feelings and miraculous experiences, do you want his faith to be rooted in that? Is that what the Bible teaches us to do?

2 Corinthians 4:5

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.^[a^] 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

Here is the demonstration of the Spirit's power - God's testimony of Jesus Christ crucified, so that our faith rest in the Gospel, and not on wise and persuasive words, good as they are - they are but nothing in times of trouble. As I come to close, I would like to share with you personally...

"I find myself much more confident selling the Full Gospel, rather than fearing my candy-packed-Gospel would be unconvincing"

Some of you sales people out there, I'm sure you would understand this. It is easier to sell a good product, than to sell one that you can't guarantee anything. Question to you, question to me is this: -

Have I been sharing the Gospel faithfully and truthfully?

What am I trusting in when I seek to share the Gospel? (God's Spirit to use God's Word? or God to use my brilliant life experience?)

If I trust that God will use His Word - then am I behaving that way in my speech? Am I taking the effort to learn what the Gospel is before telling others?

FAQ (something like that) 

Many people have used Paul's encounter with King Agrippa as a defense that a personal testimony is "the way to go". That is a terrible misreading of the context. Paul was brought out to defend himself and then perhaps share the gospel. Paul was not invited to "tell from Genesis to Revelations". Besides that, Paul was aware that Agrippa knew the prophets (OT), and when Paul appeals to Agrippa, Paul used the OT, God's Word.

Some of us work hard in our day job with the thinking of 

"One day, my colleagues will realize I'm so excellent in my job and I get promotions and I am so happy all the time. and then they will ask me why? then I will answer then 'it is because I believe in Jesus', then they will somehow be convinced that it is the right thing to be a christian and try out church"

I hope this logic works for you, because it doesn't work for me. I believe that Christians should do their work faithfully and honestly, for this adorns the doctrine of God our Saviour (Titus 2:9-10) But let us not mislead others into Christianity.

The second answer to that is also that it is the Bible pattern to lead people to Christ using God's Word. Relationships are important (we know it is hard to invite a person to church), but they cannot be the means nor the reason why someone would come to Christ. We have to trust God in evangelism, and trusting God simply means that we trust that His Spirit using His Word - is good enough, in fact, it is the best way to lead a sinner to Christ.